


oasis child (born so wild)

by blanchtt



Series: you see through me (i come alive) [2]
Category: Carol (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-21 13:03:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15558309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanchtt/pseuds/blanchtt
Summary: There are pale green stalks of seedlings poking through the earth along with a few weeds in the plot she’s cleaned up, and Therese asks them politely not to grow here but maybe a few feet over there where they’re free to flourish, and the weeds do move, slowly but surely, as fast as they can.Sister Margaret sees only the result and says she has a green thumb, and since no one else wants to take care of the garden Therese does so herself and is able to breathe more easily because of it.





	oasis child (born so wild)

**Author's Note:**

> i. A comment prompted me to think more about the 'it's what you do (that pulls me through)' fic, so here it is!
> 
> ii. When I read the book, I imagined they were only ten or so years apart. Please join me in this illusion.

 

 

 

 

Therese keeps her face passive and turned toward Sister Alicia. Focused, but not overmuch, and nodding occasionally, though only softly—nothing to give away that, while seeming as if she’s paying attention, she couldn’t possibly care less about Saint Augustine and the damned pears.

 

He was an _ass_ , Therese decides, lingering pleased on the curse word, nearly twelve and moody.

 

After three years of the same pontificating, catechism is a bore, and Sister Alicia must see it on her face regardless of her attempts to mask it because after class is let out Sister Alicia motions her over and Therese gathers her things and walks tentatively to where Sister Alicia sits at her desk.

 

But as always with Sister Alicia, she leaves with a gift rather than the sting of a ruler across her palms—Therese nods her thanks and parts with a book of female saints and to her own surprise, after dinner and getting ready for bed, spends the rest of the evening reading the book.

 

Her enthusiasm is quickly tempered. There is Mary, of course, who everyone knows, and Agnes of Rome, and Justina of Padua, and Charitina of Amisus, and Marciana of Mauretania, and Therese knows already yet is still surprised to find that the list of virgin martyrs is a long one.

 

She sits in bed, wondering if this gift is perhaps a punishment instead, excitement petered out, and nearly closes the book, puts it on her nightstand to never pick up again. But she turns one last page, hoping, and on one page is a print of St. Joan and on the other her history.

 

The portrait is not in color and St. Joan’s face in fact stares up from her position at the stake with the same look of bored ecstasy that all the other saints do, but that does not stop the fact that this woman, Therese knows somehow, is different.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Helping Sister Margaret in the kitchen is the chore she dislikes the least, so Therese choses it the most. It’s better than mopping or helping the younger girls, and it doesn’t hurt that Sister Margaret likes her well enough, after Sister Alicia.

 

Therese stands on a footstool and flips through the cupboard where the spices are kept, chooses marjoram and rosemary and thyme and hardly has to pick up the teaspoon to measure it all out. It just makes sense, little bits of leaves in her palm, and when Sister Margaret tastes the broth there’s a frown on her face for doing more than Sister Margaret asked her to, but it quickly turns into a more neutral frown, almost a smile, and it must not be so bad after all.

 

Perhaps because she’s stuck her fingers where she shouldn’t have or perhaps because she’s nurturing something that could be useful, Sister Margaret takes her outside, shows her the little plot set aside outside where a struggling garden grows, neglected, and Sister Margaret tells her if she can get something to grow there, they’ll use it.

 

Sister Margaret walks back into the kitchen and Therese steps off the grass and onto the barren part of the earth, kneels down, looks around for anyone to berate her for getting her stockings and hands dirty before pushing fingertips against the ground, sinks her fingers into the dirt.

 

_I was thirteen when I had a Voice from God for my help and guidance. The first time that I heard this Voice, I was very much frightened; it was mid-day, in the summer, in my father's garden._

 

It’s poor soil, but Therese closes her eyes. She thinks of all the little roots, pale and thin, and urges whatever remaining life that might be there to come back, then stands and brushes dirt off her knees and runs inside.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

It’s probably blasphemous to do so, but Therese feels like St. Joan would approve.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

There could be a thousand reasons why her mother left her here, Therese knows. She’s gone over them again and again since the day she’d arrived—some days with thoughts in a tumult and a need to pick a fight, others with an _almost_ understanding sense of detachment, and many more with variations on both.

 

But _this_ may be it, and in any case it’s as good a reason to pin it on as any.

 

(There are pale green stalks of seedlings poking through the earth along with a few weeds in the plot she’s cleaned up, and Therese asks them politely not to grow here but maybe a few feet over there where they’re free to flourish, and the weeds do move, slowly but surely, as fast as they can.

 

Sister Margaret sees only the result and says she has a green thumb, and since no one else wants to take care of the garden Therese does so herself and is able to breathe more easily because of it.)

 

(She has concluded that this is probably not God’s work.)

 

Therese decides, puts it to rest, and feels a heaviness lift off her soul.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Like the peace lily she’s had to re-pot, the knowledge comes to her intuitively. The classrooms seem smaller and so do the nuns, and the garden is thriving, overgrowing—and some other understanding, too, throws its hat in the ring, urges her on.

 

Therese finishes class, leaves, and asks around the neighborhood each afternoon, and to her surprise a job is easy to come by, and after that so is an apartment, and so she gathers her things, a few books and plants, says goodbye to the Sisters that have helped her, and leaves just before her eighteenth birthday without looking back.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

If she were to hazard a guess, Therese has already pondered before, she’s far behind what most other women know at nineteen, even with what she’s already learned. It’s incredibly difficult to study witchcraft at a Catholic school, and hard in a new way now that her apartment has no garden, nowhere for her to practice.

 

But it is what it is, Therese knows, and is glad she knows even this.

 

She works at Dannie’s uncle’s flower shop by day and studies at night, staying up far too late and enjoying every moment of it. She broadens her base of knowledge, learns all about biology and phytology and even a bit of chemistry, applies it not only to keeping her plants alive and happy but also to salves and tisanes and cures of every sort, made from her own pharmacy.

 

And it all does give her a sense of satisfaction. There is the acquisition of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. But she finds there are only so many plants her apartment can hold and only so many teas she can make for herself and only so many salves she doesn’t need, and what is she supposed to do with all of this in her icebox now?

 

This rootlessness must be the cause, Therese thinks, for that unending feeling of loneliness that seems impossible to shake.

 

Dannie asks her out and she turns him down, and he moves on good-naturedly. It’s sitting at the counter at work and reading-but-not-reading, lost in thought, that there is a moment of _aha!_ , of Therese sighing and realizing that going home to an empty bed and a lonely apartment make New York City fell bigger and emptier than it already does.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

By twenty, the difference in her life is practically antipodal.

 

Therese comes to consciousness slowly, warmly, with the happy realization that there is no work for either of them today, that they can laze about as they wish, and that the sun is well on its way to shining through their bedroom window.

 

It is lazy mornings like this most of all that she sometimes struggles to believe are real.

 

Of course, soon Rindy will knock on their door and demand breakfast or the summer heat will have them up and showering to cool off. But for now Therese moves under the covers, reaches out, and slips her arms around Carol’s bare waist, moves closer so that she presses against her back, chin tucked just over Carol’s shoulder.

 

Carol smells of gardenia still, and of sex, too, and she must be awake because Carol presses back against her, tilts her head to the side just so and reaches back, fingertips along her jaw and urging her into an angled kiss.

 

“Good morning,” Therese says when she pulls back, and Carol hums a reply absently, shifts, and suddenly Therese is on her back, unable to keep from laughing as Carol sinks into her, lips pressing kisses to her neck, because as new as it all is for her, she often forgets it is for Carol as well.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

The box on the windowsill she plants with things Carol needs, rosemary and lavender and mint, and sits at the kitchen table, watches and learns from her alongside Rindy. It’s a treat to watch her work, infinitely skilled.

 

But she branches out, thinks about what she’d like to do for herself and comes up with a plan.

 

Of course, Carol tries to help. _Tries_ , because Therese had handed the check back, shaken her head, but Carol had persisted, finally settling on calling it just a loan if that’s what it would take for Therese to accept it, and then, promising herself that she would return the amount someday, Therese had accepted it.

 

She tells Dannie the bad news, puts in her last day, and then walks the rest of the way back home, keeps going several blocks and stops, inquires about the little grocer’s store with a miniature greenhouse out back that’s been for lease for months and finds she’s able to get quite a deal out of it.

 

As she walks through it the next day, new keys in hand and taking stock, it’s not hard to miss the grey tabby cat slinking around just outside the backdoor, yellow eyes bright, and maybe it’s her upbringing but she’s not one to ignore portents.

 

(She names the little thing Myshka and even though she’s already paid for the place, it’s the cat that really seals the deal because what is a witch’s home—or in her case, her workplace—without a cat?)

 

She cleans up the place, moves her things from the room she’s taken over in their home to the greenhouse instead, borrows some paint and makes a new sign for the front. It’s vague, saying only _Belivet’s_ , but neither that nor the location hardly matter. Abby and Carol’s help and word of mouth are enough to find her the clients she needs. And Abby pitches in in other useful ways, comes over and furrows her brows and concentrates and mutters something that means nothing to Therese, but assures her no one’s going to be wandering in that doesn’t _belong_.

 

There are plants from far and wide that she nurtures, offered up for sale for those that know what to do with them, and her own creations, teas and tinctures along with Carol’s potions.

 

It is something for herself, something to be proud of, Therese knows as she looks around at all of it before unlocking the front door for the first time on Monday morning.

 

And best of all, since it’s hers, she can’t get in trouble for reading at the sales counter.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She is twenty-four and this is their routine.

 

If Carol has no appointments she drives Rindy to school, because Therese knows she abhors walking more than five blocks in her heels, and if Carol is occupied Therese takes her, leads her on walks through the streets with Rindy’s hand in hers.

 

There is work, never dull and always busy because there is always something to be done, some plant to be purchased and cared for, something to be created, something to be read and researched and tested, and in the rare moments of calm there is always Myshka to tease with a bit of string.

 

There is Dannie and Genevieve, the films she and Dannie watch and the plays Genevieve is a part of, all discussed over beers, and when Dannie leaves there is just herself and Genevieve, the other woman speaking more freely of how so-and-so has a new girl or what a stroke of luck it was that she came into the same talent as her mother, wasn't it, when that usually wasn't the case.

 

At home there is a different kind of busyness with a child in the house, something Therese had never thought she’d experience. Between herself and Carol they share the preparation of meals, and Rindy is easygoing and happy, tells them all about her day at school as they eat and after dinner Therese sits on the ground with her, helps her with her coloring or her homework at the coffee table as Carol sits and smokes a bit before joining them.

 

It is easy to fall into.

 

But there are days enough where things change, where she goes out with friends or Carol goes out with hers, where a late night for one of them means the other goes to bed by herself, where Abby in all her auntly duties stops by and picks up Rindy for a sleepover and a knowing wisecrack before leaving, and they have the weekend to themselves.

 

There are no responsibilities, no plans, nothing scheduled except to show Carol how, even years later, every touch between them excites Therese as much as the first had.

 

Carol is wet and trembling but has yet to come, and Therese laps more quickly, with a little more force, teases the little bud with the tip of her tongue before chancing a glance up, at Carol with her head tilted back, who grips onto the back of the couch to keep from sliding off, chest heaving and dress half-unbuttoned, love marks scattered along the pale curve of her breast. Therese shifts her shoulder under Carol’s leg, slides her hand higher up Carol’s thigh and to her hip to hold her steady, gives her one last lick and purses her lips, sucks instead, and that’s all Carol needs, and Therese holds on tightly to her, content, as Carol jerks against her in surprise, goes rigid as a keening cry slips past her lips.

 

It's a sight she can't imagine ever growing tired of, or growing tired of causing.

 

Therese continues, softer, touch lighter, reads the movement and sound of her, backs off as Carol rides her orgasm and slowly goes limp, takes deep, shuddering gasps and slips against her—her grip on the couch understandably loosens, and Therese pushes, urges her into a half-sitting position, pushes up from her position kneeled in front of Carol to struggle onto the couch too, takes a seat at the end of it and leans against the back, head propped on an elbow as she catches her breath, too.

 

Carol watches her through half-lidded eyes, understandably hazy, and suddenly aware, Therese raises her free hand, draws the flat between palm and thumb across her bottom lip, wrist arched, gathers the slickness that threatens to drip down her chin. It takes only a heartbeat’s thought—Therese licks it away, holds Carol’s gaze steady and watches as that wan, tired smile grows, and Carol sits up, fingers on her wrist and bringing her hand away, leans forward and captures her lips with her own.

 

Tomorrow there will be errands to run and Rindy to pick up and the week to prepare for—all things that she looks forward to, of course. There are lunches to prepare and clothes to take to be laundered, and a shipment tomorrow she's got to be ready for and perhaps drinks on Friday, to finish off the week. There’s not a thing she would change, if given the chance.

 

But right now there is Carol, kissing her, and a hand that makes its way between her thighs, and so Therese closes her eyes, smiles into the kiss, and pulls Carol closer.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
